A Voice from the Wilderness: the Story of Anna Howard Shaw [book review]

Brown, Don. A Voice from the Wilderness: the Story of Anna Howard Shaw. Illustrated by Don Brown. Houghton Mifflin, 2001. ISBN 0618083626. $16.00. Unpaginated. Reviewer: Sandra L. Tidwell Reading Level: Primary Rating: Excellent Genre: Biography; Subject: Shaw, Anna Howard, 1847-1919 Juvenile literature; Suffragists--United States--Biography--Juvenile literature; Women social reformers--United States--Biography--Juvenile literature; Books-Reviews; From The Story of a Pioneer, the Autobiography of Anna Howard Shaw, Brown has compiled a very interesting text for this early-reader biography. Along with her mother and older siblings, five-year-old Anna made the treacherous ocean crossing to America in 1851 to be reunited with her father. They settled in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where the children attended school. They weren't there long, however, before their father decided to go west and find a better life for the family. After building a rustic cabin in Michigan, he returned and decided that Anna's mother and the children would develop the homestead in Michigan while he worked in Lawrence. Although first very downhearted about the conditions of their remote cabin, Anna's mother and the children worked hard to complete the cabin, plant crops, fish, and dig a well. Anna took every opportunity to learn in this primitive setting - even reading old newspapers that were used for wallpaper. Discovering she liked to talk to other people about her ideas and living in such an isolated environment, Anna would stand on a tree stump and talk to the “unresponsive trees.” At age fifteen, Anna became a schoolteacher. But it was only after Anna got a college education that she became a minister a proponent for women suffrage. “The little girl who had once preached to the hushed forest now spoke to audiences around the world.” Brown's text is easy to read and his whimsical pen and ink illustrations transport the reader to the pioneer era in which Anna lived. The warm shades of watercolor seem to soften the story of Anna's challenging life. Anna is portrayed as a positive person who learned from her courageous mother the value of hard work. Young readers will be able to see the connection of a young child's dream to her later work in assuring important freedoms for women.

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Brown, Don. A Voice from the Wilderness: the Story of Anna Howard Shaw. Illustrated by Don Brown. Houghton Mifflin, 2001. ISBN 0618083626. $16.00. Unpaginated. Reviewer: Sandra L. Tidwell Reading Level: Primary Rating: Excellent Genre: Biography; Subject: Shaw, Anna Howard, 1847-1919 Juvenile literature; Suffragists--United States--Biography--Juvenile literature; Women social reformers--United States--Biography--Juvenile literature; Books-Reviews; From The Story of a Pioneer, the Autobiography of Anna Howard Shaw, Brown has compiled a very interesting text for this early-reader biography. Along with her mother and older siblings, five-year-old Anna made the treacherous ocean crossing to America in 1851 to be reunited with her father. They settled in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where the children attended school. They weren't there long, however, before their father decided to go west and find a better life for the family. After building a rustic cabin in Michigan, he returned and decided that Anna's mother and the children would develop the homestead in Michigan while he worked in Lawrence. Although first very downhearted about the conditions of their remote cabin, Anna's mother and the children worked hard to complete the cabin, plant crops, fish, and dig a well. Anna took every opportunity to learn in this primitive setting - even reading old newspapers that were used for wallpaper. Discovering she liked to talk to other people about her ideas and living in such an isolated environment, Anna would stand on a tree stump and talk to the “unresponsive trees.” At age fifteen, Anna became a schoolteacher. But it was only after Anna got a college education that she became a minister a proponent for women suffrage. “The little girl who had once preached to the hushed forest now spoke to audiences around the world.” Brown's text is easy to read and his whimsical pen and ink illustrations transport the reader to the pioneer era in which Anna lived. The warm shades of watercolor seem to soften the story of Anna's challenging life. Anna is portrayed as a positive person who learned from her courageous mother the value of hard work. Young readers will be able to see the connection of a young child's dream to her later work in assuring important freedoms for women.

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